50. Consequently, in protecting such redress and ensuring that their
vulnerability is not exploited, a safeguard is put in place to ensure that
individuals or organisations that represent them do so in the best interest of
the said victims. Therefore in a representative Application, it is imperative
that the Court is convinced that the victims willingly and knowingly
delegated to such individuals or organization their inherent rights to seek
redress by themselves. Therein lies the import of the requirement for
mandate to act and the mischief it seeks to cure.
51.As earlier stated, the Court has no record of any mandate from the said
inmates, the importance of which as highlighted supra is not only imperative
but equally mandatory. Lack of such mandate in the instant case is therefore
grave as it renders the Application incompetent. This consequence has been
affirmed in a plethora of decisions by the Court as in the case below where
in further confirmation of a mandate as a legal document that gives full
power to act, it held thus: “....in the absence of such mandate, the Collectif
des Association Contre l’impunite au Togo which claims to represent Mr.
AGBETOGNON in the instant procedure cannot validly intervene in the
case in such quality. Consequently, there is need to declare the Application
as inadmissible”. COLLECTIF DES ASSOCIATION CONTRE L’IMPUNITE AU
TOGO VS TOGO ECW/CCJ/JUD/12/18 PARAGRAPH 12&13. See also MME
AZIABLEVI YOVO & 31 ORS V TOGO TELECOM & REPUBLIC OF TOGO
ECW/CCJ/JUD/04/12, PARAGRAPH 38.
52.In view of the above analysis, the Application filed by Incorporated Trustees
of Centre for Peace and Conflict Management in Africa and Rethink Africa
Foundation on behalf of the 3 named inmates without a mandate from them
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